What it means to be human, in 11 paragraphs.

Newspaper clipping I found in High School. Don't remember the exact year, but roughly late '80s. I kept this because it perfectly displays almost every aspect of the human condition. It is obviously a tragedy by any rational standard, but still fascinating. Enjoy.


Woman found guilty in womb-ripping murder for baby

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP)
A former Oregon woman who a prosecuter said had an "obsession to have a child" has been found guilty but mentally ill of first-degree murder in the death of a pregnant woman whose baby was crudely cut from her womb.

The state District Court jury also found Darci K. Pierce guilty but mentally ill of kidnapping and child-abuse charges. The jury returned the verdicts yesterday after about six hours of deliberations over two days.

Mrs Pierce, 20, formerly of Portland, Ore., had pleaded innocent by reason of insanity in the death of Cindy Lynn Ray, 23. Mrs. Ray was 8½ months pregnant when she was strangled July 23.

Authorities said Mrs. Ray was abducted from the parking lot of a Kirtland Air Force Base health clinic and was driven to the Manzano Mountains east of Albuquerque, where she was strangled and a key was used to cut her unborn baby from her body. The baby survived. [Emphasis mine.]

Mrs. Pierce was arrested after she went to an Albuquerque hospital with a newborn girl and doctors determined she had not given birth.

Mrs. Pierce and the victim were married to airmen at the Kirtland base.

District Judge Richard Traub set sentencing for April 29. Mrs Pierce could receive life imprisonment on the murder conviction, an additional 18 years on the kidnapping charge and 18 months on the child-abuse charge.

Under New Mexico law, a jury finding of guilty but mentally ill means the person does not meet the legal test for insanity but had a substantial mental disorder that impaired judgement at the time of the crime.

The defendant is subject to standard sentences but the state Corrections Department is required to provide counseling and treatment "as it deems necessary."

Bogren said an appeal will be filed.

Mrs Ray's husband, Samuel, has returned to his home state of Utah with the infant girl, named Amelia, and her 2-year-old brother.


-The desire to have an offspring so overpowering it leads to such a feral-style murder.
-The unfortunate youth of those involved, and their imagined condition as young military families.
-The regular folk (Judges, doctors, lawyers, the jury) who had to deal with these events in a professional & public way.
-The dispassionate, objective reporting done by the AP writer. (There's no emotion in this article, the facts are provided in the standard lead-info first journalism; the decending order of relevance should the article need trimming.)
-What's not said in the line; "The baby survived."
-That we publish, read, and share 'news' of this nature as a society.
-That our advanced society had a judicial system in place with standardized sentencing guidelines that fit this event, and medical assistance ready & automatic.
-The error in editing that left the orphaned line; "Bogren said an appeal will be filed."
-The off-handed final paragraph showing the young father/widower going on with life.
-The fact that an airman named his daughter 'Amelia', the same as the most famous female flyer, who disappeared mysteriously.

This article is a poem to the human condition.